Developer Bandisoft came up with the Bandizip application to provide a free alternative to all the archiving software applications that are out there. Install Bandizip on your Windows-powered machine and with this application on your side, you can save space by archiving data and you can extract data from archives. It provides support for a long list of compression formats.

The Bandizip installation file is only 3.6Mb in size; downloading it is a simple task that takes little time. Installing the application on a PC powered by Windows (support is provided for 32 and 64-bit editions of Windows, from Windows 8 down to Windows 2003) is done via a simple setup wizard. You only have to select one of the many supported languages and hit the Install button, and the setup wizard will do the rest. Once the installation process completes, you will be presented with the Association section of the Settings menu; it lets you pick the compression formats you want to associate Bandizip with.

The buttons for all the functionality offered by Bandizip are presented at the top of the interface. To open an existing archive and view its contents, just hit the blue Open button, to extract the data inside the archive just press the green Extract button, and to create a new extract, click on the New button which is also green.

When creating a new archive, you get to choose the file you want to archive, choose the name of the archive and where it will be stored, select the compression format you want to use and the compression level, pick if you want to split the file, and specify if you want to password protect the archive and delete the original file.

As mentioned above, Bandizip is freeware. You can use this application and enjoy its functionality for as long as you want, for free.

The user friendly application Bandizip provides support for a long list of compression formats, does its job rapidly and efficiently, and it’s free. There are three very good reasons to give it a try.

Pros Support for a long list of languages and a long list of compression formats is supported. The Bandizip interface is quite easy to use; you will have no problems viewing and extracting archived data or archiving data. Bandizip is freeware.

Cons Windows comes with a built-in archiving tool and there are several other free archiving tools out there. Some users may be tempted to stick with what Windows offers by default or they may be tempted to go with what the competition offers, and that’s not good for Bandizip.